Without the IC, your engine will get no boost. You will draw unfiltered air in through the pipe to the IC outlet straight to the engine, so it will run. I don't know if the wastegate will open in this situation, but I suspect so. If not, you could overrev the turbocharger.

I do expect that it will run without problems or risks, if it will deliver the same performance that remains to be questioned. The reason for the intercooler is to increase the mass of the incoming air, because cold air can contain more oxygen. If in a particular case however an intercoooler has been clodded with oil (fi. from the turbo seals) the effect of the intercooler will decrease, and perhaps in this case removal would lead to an improvement in performance. I do expect that a combination of values of al of the sensors that are read by the ECU could lead to limp. Especiallly with the more newer models.

In my opinion a internal clean-up job or renewal of the intercooler would be the way to improve.

I was thinking about this just yesterday when I took my intercooler out to reseal it properly, the right join was leaking, might still, a bit...
Is the intercooler really good at cooling air and necesserasy, or a bit of a gamic?
If a free alloy pipe was fitted instead of the intercooler, would that not increase the air flow as there will be only a large open pipe from the turbo to the manifold?
Cheers.
Olivier

__________________
E300TD year 2000. RUSTY SOLD
cost a fortune to maintain on the road
but run well on WVO
Second Merc died due to corrosion ( NOT rust) How can mercedes get away with that for so long?
Third lasted a month then went away...
Fourth now... Corroded too...

If you remove the intercooler, the IAT sensor will read a higher temperature and likely lower the peak fueling which in turn, will lower power available.

I've been wanting to try an experiment. I have a scan gauge hooked up in the car displaying IAT. I'd like to make a run up the road and record the temp then take some plastic wrap and cover the intercooler and make the run again to see what the difference is.

That would be a good test, unfortunatly I don't have your tool, if not I'll give it a go. What I was thinkink is that the intercooler can cool so much air flow in a certain time with the cool air flowing from outside, most of the time I am in city centre, the turbo still kick in, but the intercoolet doesn't cool much as the outside air not flowing fast on it.
Also its like an electric element, if the power of the latest is not enough to heat up a X amount of liquid, its useless, This is why I was wondering with the high air flow and speed flow from the turbo, is the intercooler doing anything in fact?
Cheers.
Olivier.
Oh, do I make any sense?

__________________
E300TD year 2000. RUSTY SOLD
cost a fortune to maintain on the road
but run well on WVO
Second Merc died due to corrosion ( NOT rust) How can mercedes get away with that for so long?
Third lasted a month then went away...
Fourth now... Corroded too...

The intercooler's function is to cool the compressed "boost" air before it enters the intake. All fluids (air is a fluid) heat-up when compressed and cooler air is denser (more oxygen per unit of volume) than warmer air so the theory is if you can lower the temperature of the pressurized air, back to near ambient temps it will produce more power when mixed with the fuel. Cooling the intake air probably also help lower exhaust gas temps too.

As others have said, if you disconnect the intercooler (and don't connect the boost pipe directly to the intake) then you will get no boost and be able to draw unfiltered air into the intake...both bad things.

If, however, you were able to bypass the intercooler and connect the turbo's boost pipe directly to the intake all you would have is a car with boost that wasn't cooled and would not be as powerful and efficient as it is with the intercooler. You might also cause it to run hotter than it was designed to but since most of us don't have a way to monitor EGT I don't know how we would know if we did any damage or not.

Even stronger...if the current intercooler is dirty/leaking, it would probably imply that having a bypass could improve the current situation. Of course a new intercooler combined with cleaning all of the relavant "plumbing".. is the best solution.

If you remove the intercooler, the IAT sensor will read a higher temperature and likely lower the peak fueling which in turn, will lower power available.

I've been wanting to try an experiment. I have a scan gauge hooked up in the car displaying IAT. I'd like to make a run up the road and record the temp then take some plastic wrap and cover the intercooler and make the run again to see what the difference is.

Evan,

Do you know where the IAT sensor is located? Is it measuring the temp of the air post-boost and intercooler right at the intake or upstream of that? I will check my scangauge and see what kind of IAT's I read - I must admit I never used that feature.

Do you know where the IAT sensor is located? Is it measuring the temp of the air post-boost and intercooler right at the intake or upstream of that? I will check my scangauge and see what kind of IAT's I read - I must admit I never used that feature.

It's on the front of the up-pipe into the EGR "mixing" chamber. You can see it when you look down past the anti-lock brake unit toward the bottom of the intake.